WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:14.560 This is Hacker Public Radio Episode 3,935 for Friday the 1st of September 23. 00:14.560 --> 00:19.360 Today's show is entitled, Server Build Retrospective. 00:19.360 --> 00:24.080 It is hosted by Daniel Person and is about 10 minutes long. 00:24.080 --> 00:26.680 It carries a clean flag. 00:26.680 --> 00:40.760 The summary is Daniel Person goes through his experience of building his first server. 00:40.760 --> 00:49.840 Hello Akers and welcome to another podcast with Daniel and I'm going to talk about a bunch 00:49.840 --> 00:53.680 of different subjects and I'm doing like ChatGPT. 00:53.680 --> 01:01.920 I'm really good at creating a bunch of words without any real knowledge behind them. 01:01.920 --> 01:07.040 But the topics that I'm going to talk about are pretty random and I'm going to split 01:07.040 --> 01:12.280 them up and we are back and we are now talking about my server build. 01:12.360 --> 01:21.880 This semester or this holiday where I had four weeks off I actually had more work done 01:21.880 --> 01:24.360 than when I actually were working. 01:24.360 --> 01:30.200 I usually had like three or four things that I look into when I'm working and now that I was 01:30.200 --> 01:35.640 actually free and off I put down the list of 10 things that I needed to accomplish during my 01:35.640 --> 01:42.120 vacation and I think it's very healthy for me and to do stuff and figure things 01:42.120 --> 01:43.320 out and so on. 01:43.320 --> 01:45.720 I really think that is fun. 01:45.720 --> 01:47.160 I like to work. 01:47.160 --> 01:49.160 I like to figure things out. 01:49.160 --> 01:53.960 So one of the things that I wanted to do was build a server. 01:53.960 --> 01:57.240 So I currently have a bunch of small servers. 01:57.240 --> 02:06.120 I running a bunch of these kind of micro mini tiny pieces and those were pretty well and they 02:06.120 --> 02:11.560 are just one unit so you put in a disk in them and then plug them in and you can run a bunch 02:11.640 --> 02:12.680 of stuff in them. 02:12.680 --> 02:24.680 But the problem I have now is the buying two and a half inches of disk drives is not really 02:24.680 --> 02:26.440 the best options. 02:26.440 --> 02:34.120 The three and a half inches I have more space per dollar so they are more cost effective 02:34.120 --> 02:37.320 and therefore I wanted to build a bigger server. 02:37.320 --> 02:44.520 So what I did I figured out a server build with one of these kind of cast chassis that could 02:44.520 --> 02:47.880 pivot in my rack but wasn't that deep. 02:47.880 --> 02:55.400 So I found a really shallow racked a shallow server that I can install and they took a mini 02:55.400 --> 03:02.840 mini ITX and it only ran 200 watts power supply and so on. 03:02.840 --> 03:05.320 I thought it was a pretty good choice. 03:05.320 --> 03:12.440 I also bought a bunch of brackets for fans and I bought some notcha fans and I was really 03:12.440 --> 03:19.320 planning out later on figure out what kind of hardware I wanted to put in it and then I was at my 03:19.320 --> 03:25.640 friend's house and he had just upgraded one of his kit computers and he had 03:25.960 --> 03:32.600 mini ITX board just laying around and he didn't really need it. 03:32.600 --> 03:41.080 So mini ITX board so it's a lot larger than it actually would fit in here and it also had 03:41.080 --> 03:47.960 a big fan on it on the processor and so on but everything was included except for a drive 03:48.600 --> 03:55.640 so I took that home I put it into the computer I realized that it fits but having the 03:55.640 --> 04:01.560 hard drive there will be hard it doesn't really fit well but I thought that having it up 04:01.560 --> 04:08.920 arounding just as a thing in the meantime and figuring out how to work with it 04:08.920 --> 04:14.440 chassis could be a fun thing so I put that in and then I looked at these kind of brackets 04:14.440 --> 04:21.400 for the fans and I realized that these brackets that they sell for like 10 bucks at this shop 04:21.400 --> 04:28.520 is for server fans those thick big fans that do sliding into these ones so they were built for 04:28.520 --> 04:34.680 those and the noxcha fans there are really thin but noxcha are saved me there because they have 04:34.680 --> 04:41.640 these kind of plastic or rubbery things that you can throw through them and I could actually 04:42.600 --> 04:48.920 put it through the grill at the end of the chassis and get it mounted in the chassis as well so 04:48.920 --> 04:56.200 that worked out just fine so now I had the motherboard put in and I also put in the noxcha fans 04:56.200 --> 05:05.080 and now I want to plug in the power supply and there was the next turtle because on the motherboard 05:05.080 --> 05:17.720 you have a 24 pin power connector and a 4 pin power connector and the fun part is that the 05:17.720 --> 05:30.520 200 watt power supply it had a 20 pin plus an 8 pin so it was not compatible at all but after 05:30.520 --> 05:40.600 looking around a lot I found this retailer from I think Taiwan that sold these kind of 8 pin to 05:40.600 --> 05:49.480 4 pins connector so and I read up on it and it's pretty much an 8 pin is two sides of the 05:49.480 --> 05:57.000 connector so you could go from 8 to 4 without any problems you could put an 8 into a 4 if you 05:57.000 --> 06:03.640 just put it in the right place and they are actually knocked in a way so you can't really force it 06:03.640 --> 06:09.800 in in the correct way but it was other components at the end of the connector so I couldn't 06:09.800 --> 06:17.080 really get it in without having this kind of bridge and then I was looking at the 24 pins and 06:17.080 --> 06:23.720 what's thinking okay how can I use a 20 pin in a 24 pin so I read up on that as well and the extra 06:23.720 --> 06:33.320 4 pins there is just a 12 volt connector extra for the board so you could connect and 20 pin 06:33.320 --> 06:44.920 to a 24 pin as long as you don't use the full power of the CPU so I wanted to try that out I haven't 06:44.920 --> 06:51.000 really got the first connector yet so I tried to get the other one in and I realized that cable 06:51.000 --> 06:57.240 was too short now I have bought an extension cable to the server as well in order to get that 06:57.240 --> 07:04.280 connector so there is a bunch of things that is in the mail waiting to be shipped out to me in order 07:04.280 --> 07:11.880 to get my server build up and running so what I have learned from this experience is that I need to figure 07:12.040 --> 07:22.040 out what kind of cables actually come with the mounting hardware and also figure out what kind 07:22.040 --> 07:31.480 of motherboard is actually supported and probably use those kind of things instead of going with 07:31.480 --> 07:40.360 these kind of odd choices and another thing was also that the front panel connector was just one 07:40.440 --> 07:47.640 large brick with a bunch of connectors in it but it isn't really that bad because those are just 07:48.360 --> 07:54.920 like on-off switches and like leds and so on the worst thing you can do is actually burn out a 07:54.920 --> 08:01.320 led on the front panel so I'm not really worried about that but there were no pins that really match 08:01.320 --> 08:10.280 that connector but I could push it in over one of the front panel connector pins it was fewer pins 08:10.280 --> 08:16.920 than it was in that connector but I think they are pretty much standardized where they are placed so 08:16.920 --> 08:23.400 I hope that it will work so that's another thing I need to figure out if I actually can get the front 08:23.400 --> 08:27.960 panel connector to work or if I need to just bridge a pin or something like that to get the 08:27.960 --> 08:33.000 server up and running but does not really need the extra leds I don't really need a power 08:35.320 --> 08:40.120 power button or anything like that it's not that important because the server will 08:40.200 --> 08:48.760 pretty much be on 24-7 but it would be nice to get those working as well and I think in the future 08:48.760 --> 08:55.640 I will replace it this motherboard with an ITX mini instead so I actually have the right kind of board 08:55.640 --> 09:03.240 for this kind of chassis but looking that up on Alexpress or something like that I'm figuring out 09:04.200 --> 09:17.160 a correct CPU that works with the right board and then finding a static solution for the cooling 09:17.160 --> 09:24.680 so I can't really have a thin one with a fan because then you will have a fan that lies against 09:24.840 --> 09:34.760 a lid of the board so you pretty much need to just have a cooling solution without a fan so 09:34.760 --> 09:39.640 that is something I need to figure out as well so there is a bunch of things to think about when 09:39.640 --> 09:48.120 it comes to building server chassis so maybe next time when I buy a server I might look at the 09:48.120 --> 09:55.240 pre-built because it's a lot of work and I have built a lot of computers in my life but usually 09:55.240 --> 10:01.480 it's just plug and pray you just pick some components that you know works together and then you put it 10:01.480 --> 10:08.200 into a chassis and you have a lot of space to put it in but when it comes to these one new servers 10:08.200 --> 10:14.920 you are space constrained and everything becomes a lot more complicated but that's a fun part as well 10:15.000 --> 10:22.840 if it was easy it would be as fun I think so I have a lot of think about it and if you have any 10:22.840 --> 10:26.200 comments please leave them and I will read them later 10:29.640 --> 10:34.600 you have been listening to Hecker Public Radio at Hecker Public Radio does a work 10:34.600 --> 10:40.680 today's show was contributed by a HBO artist like yourself if you ever thought of recording 10:40.680 --> 10:48.120 or cast click on our contributing to find out how easy it 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